Necro Presents: The Unauthorized Biography of Kool G Rap

This week Necro and Kool G Rap have unleashed their hardcore manifesto Once Upon A Crime on the world under the guise of The Godfathers. The project fuses gore-master general Necro's brutal beats and no-holds-barred rhymes with veteran New York City gangsta rapper Kool G Rap's still-furious flows. It's not for the faint-of-heart and lily-livered. In celebration of the release, we got Necro to drop a historical tribute to the Kool Genius of Rap. While you indulge in that, stream the new project below.

When did you first hear Kool G Rap's music?The first time would have been watching Video Music Box and it was "Road To The Riches." As kids, we were very big Billy Joel fans -- somehow Billy Joel invaded our world, him and Hall & Oats -- and I'm pretty sure I recognized the sample on the song [from "Stiletto"]. And just the fact that he was rapping a lot of criminal shit. I don't think I fully understood that he was rapping multi-syllabic rhymes yet, but I recognized the whole rapping in court and mentioning shit like John Gotti. I thought it was pretty cool.

When did you first start to really understand G Rap's music?It was when I started listening to "Wanted: Dead Or Alive." I remember being blown away by that. [Raps] "I'm wanted dead or alive/ I stalk the New York sidewalk/ All the girls hawk, but I don't stop to talk." I thought that was cool, the way he was talking about how the girls look but he don't stop for them. Then he's going on and talking about walking around with a "nine on my waistline/ Got 16 shots and I don't waste mine." That was pretty cool. And he's talking about rocking Ballys, wearing nice shoes, while shooting people! It was some real gangsta shit.

I was so young I didn't fully understand the gangsta shit, 'cause he was really kinda rapping movie shit; it was a mixture of the 'hood and the movies. Some of it was thug and 'hood, some of it was from gangsta movies. I was living drama at the projects, but I didn't go through anything gory -- in the projects everything was pretty much cut and dry. But G Rap was crazy and he would say a lot of crazy shit that I would end up living.

Like when he rapped about black army suits and Timberland boots and rolling like troops, he's talking like going up with like an army against people. I would eventually do that. We'd get dressed up in black, and the whole idea was being mysterious so nobody will recognize you -- he takes that and incorporates it in that song.